1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention described herein pertain to the field of video surveillance systems and methods. More particularly, but not by way of limitation, these embodiments enable the integration of weapons and simulated weapons with a video surveillance system.
2. Description of the Related Art
A network allows multiple computers or other hardware components to communicate with one another. Networks such as a serial bus, LAN, WAN or public network are used to locally or distally couple computers or components. Public networks such as the Internet have limitations in throughput, latency and security that restrict the amount of data, time delay of the data and type of data that is sent on the public network with respect to private networks such as a LAN.
Current video surveillance systems allow for the remote collection of data from sensors. These systems do not allow for integration with real weapons or for a sensor to be utilized as a simulated weapon wherein the sensor may later be substituted for a real weapon or wherein a real weapon may be substituted for by a sensor. Current surveillance systems do not allow for multiple remote weapons and/or sensors and/or sensors configured as simulated weapons to be dynamically discovered via the video surveillance system and allocated and utilized by one or more operators. Current surveillance systems do not allow for the remote control of sensors coupled with the surveillance system or for the control of sensors external to the surveillance system. Current video surveillance systems simply allow for a single operator to manually switch the source of video to display between a limited number of video cameras generally.
Current video surveillance systems are therefore monolithic closed solutions that are static and cannot be augmented with real weapons, simulated weapons or integrated data and control exchange with an existing remotely operated network weapon system. These systems fail to allow for training and scenario planning in order to effectively evaluate and plan for the addition of real weapons with an existing surveillance system.